[He can tell it's hard for her. He couldn't precisely say how he can tell; maybe it's something about her tone or the way she tenses up just a little in his arms or because she has to say it twice, like she's trying to convince herself. One of those things, or just instinct, maybe.]

[It doesn't matter how he knows. Just that he does - that they're the same in this way, too, and that helps convince him that he's doing the right thing.]

[Someone else, she says, and he pulls away just slightly, puts his hands on her shoulders and looks at her with narrow-eyed concern. Someone else on the Fleet. Someone dangerous, maybe, someone she thinks he needs to be aware of at least. He isn't expecting Stefan's name; his fingers flex without tightening on her shoulders when he hears it.]

I met him. He . . . we're working on the, I don't remember what he called it. The religious center, on the Iskaulit.

[Working together. He gets the feeling he should regret that, maybe; she says epic love but she says was, too, and the way she's saying all of this, there's more instinct here, that he did something and he hurt her and that, that is not permissible.]

So he knows about you, too, [he says, as gently as he can manage, because asking about the other things - the things she wants to tell him, the things she'll have to tell him slowly - would be too cruel.] Is that right?